Megalneusaurus
Megalneusaurus is an extinct genus of large pliosaur that lived in the Sundance Sea during the Kimmeridgian, ~156-152 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic. It was named by paleontologist W. C. Knight in 1895.
| Megalneusaurus Temporal range: Late Jurassic | |
|---|---|
| Illustration of some of the holotype fossils. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | †Sauropterygia |
| Order: | †Plesiosauria |
| Family: | †Pliosauridae |
| Clade: | †Thalassophonea |
| Genus: | †Megalneusaurus Knight, 1898 |
| Type species | |
| Megalneusaurus rex Knight, 1898 | |
The genus and type species were based upon ribs, vertebrae, a fore-paddle and fragments of the pectoral girdle discovered in the Sundance Formation in Wyoming, USA in 1895. The species named Megalneusaurus rex (meaning "great swimming lizard king") in 1898. However some of this material has since been lost, although new material has been discovered from the same site. Based upon the bones very large size, it appears to have grown to a size comparable to Liopleurodon.
Material from southern Alaska has been referred to as Megalneusaurus, although this material is from an individual of much smaller size, twice lesser than M. rex.